DART approves Bishop Arts to downtown tourist shuttle

Service on a tourist-oriented DART shuttle from downtown Dallas to the Bishop Arts District will begin Nov. 4. The shuttle, route 722, will run 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday. It will include a stop at Bishop Arts and make a loop from Davis to Edgefield to Jefferson to Zang and back downtown, where it will hit the convention center, Klyde Warren Park, the Perot museum and other entertainment destinations.

The shuttle is a two-year pilot program that will cost about $2.6 million to operate. Downtown Dallas Inc. is giving $500,000 a year to the cost. The city is paying $800,000 from a federal grant, and DART will fund the remainder.

Once the first stage of the Oak Cliff streetcar opens, sometime between October 2014 and February 2015, the shuttle would connect passengers from the end of the line at Methodist hospital to the Bishop Arts District, says Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce president Bob Stimson. Downtown Dallas Inc. is providing shuttle vouchers to downtown restaurants and hotels, and Stimson says he wants to make sure that business owners in Oak Cliff can offer those vouchers as well.

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Aside from shuttling conventioneers and locals across the bridge, Stimson says he also hopes that workers in the Bishop Arts District, estimated at 200-250 employees on the weekends, will be able to park their cars remotely and ride the shuttle to work, in an effort to relieve parking woes. Cliff Temple Baptist Church already has offered its lot for that purpose, he says.